The Role of The Music Efitor and The Temp Track PDF

The Role of the Music Editor and the 'Temp Track' as Blueprint for the Score, Source
Music, and Scource Music of Films

Author(s): Ronald H. Sadoff
Source: Popular Music, Vol. 25, No. 2 (May, 2006), pp. 165-183
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Popular Music (2006) Volume 25/2. Copyright @ 2006 Cambridge University Press, pp. 165-183
doi:10.1017/S0261143006000845 Printed in the United Kingdom
The role of the music editor and

the 'temp track' as blueprint for
the score, source music, and
scource music of films
RONALD H. SADOFF
Dept of Music and Performing Arts, New York University, 35 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012,
USA
E-mail: ron.sadoff@nyu.edu
Abstract
The 'temp track', a temporary mock-up of a film's soundtrack, is assembled from pre-existing
music prior to the real, commissioned score being composed. An integral element of the
post-production process of American feature films, it survives only in its role for audience
previews. Constructed by a music editor, in most cases, it is a blueprint of a film's soundtrack - a
musical topography of score, songs, culture and codes in which a balance must obtain between the
director's vision, the music's function, underlying requirements of genre, and the spectator's
perception. This article demonstrates that the temp track informs compositional practices and the
final score, and makes the argument that textual analysis would benefit from the recognition of the
role of production practices. Drawing on published sources and interviews with practitioners, this
article provides historical context and musical detail, and shows how productive analysis can be
when it draws on practitioners' insights as well as textual analysis. Film score analysis must not
begin and end with the finished film score but must utilise a more eclectic methodology which
takes into account the production process. Film score analysis should reflect the constitutive
nature of film and film music.
Enquiry into film music has greatly expanded over the past fifteen years, yet few
scholars are expert in the multifaceted elements of film production and its organic
relation to the music therein. Most enquiries posit the film composer as a central figure
and conduit. However, analysis of the film score represents the tip of the iceberg; there
are numerous layers of initial musical processes that prepare the creation of a film
score. These pre-emptive stages substantially and profoundly inform a film composer
about the film score before it is written. The purpose of this article, within the context
of a need to make film inquiry more eclectic in methodology, is to clarify the various
roles, chronology, and internal processes in the creation of the film score focusing on
the American feature film. This constitutive account of the numerous and fragmented
layers in the construction of film music is a necessary element for eclectic film
inquiry. Multiple levels of strata both inform and inhibit the film composer. This
rich underbelly of musical creation and information needs to be part of film music
inquiry. I argue that film score analysis must not begin and end with the finished
film score. Filmicore analysis should reflect the constitutive nature of film and film
music.
165
166 Ronald H. Sadoff
Driven by film's role as a commercial medium, the efforts of the collaborators on

a film are continually mediated by the pulse of public reception. From initial phases of
post-production, audience previews serve as barometers for the state of a picture's
creative development and for the assessment of its financial prospects (Griffin 2004,
p. 13).2 While the real, commissioned score is being written, and for the purpose of
contributing to presentations of the film-in-progress, a temporary soundtrack is
created - the 'temp track'. A music editor creates the temp track, which is a dynamic
mock-up of the soundtrack, and to do this, he or she has to balance the director's
vision, the music's function, underlying requirements of genre, and the spectator's
perception. Before the real score replaces the temp track, the temp track as mock-up is
deemed artistically and commercially viable by audience reaction. The temp track, in
most cases, is a veritable blueprint of a film's soundtrack - a musical topography of
score, songs, culture and codes.
A long-standing practice in sound film,3 the temp track rehearses a ghostly
version of the real, composed soundtrack's integration of musical forces, and survives
only in its role for audience previews - discarded immediately following the preview
phase. Like the composer, the music editor works in close collaboration with the film's
director, the picture editor and the music supervisor, and 'compiles' the temp track
with cues often drawn from the scores of pre-existing films - a testament to film music
as a potent elixir of style, connotation and affect. The routine interchangeability of
cues utilised in temp tracks demonstrates their practical functionality, rooted in a pool
of standardised and accepted cliches and conventions.
At the inception of post-production, only skeletal elements embody the sonic
realm of a film - essentially only production sound, i.e. dialogue and any sound
recorded during principal photography. For a variety of reasons, most production
sound is re-recorded or significantly altered; sound effects are created and recreations
of natural sound, Foley,4 are added. The score is yet to be composed, and pre-existing
songs may still be in negotiation with record companies and publishers. The finished
soundtrack is the responsibility of the music supervisor5 who is a power broker for the
soundtrack, in some instances even influencing the choice of a composer for a film,
although composers may have ambivalent feelings toward music supervisors.6
The temp track usually provides the composer with a working model for the
score. Directors and producers become so convinced, accustomed, and perhaps
'married' to the 'temp' ('temp love'), that composers are often requested to emulate it.
Those with enough clout often refuse to listen to it, citing its presence as a major factor
in diminishing their own creative input. George Burt (1994, p. 220) sums up many
film composers' sentiments toward them: 'There are two words that will strike horror
in a composer's heart: temp track'. Conversely, in the course of scoring a film, a
composer may convince the director of viable alternatives and approaches to the
temp. Nevertheless, the work of film composers, answering to a complex of narrative,
directorial and visual demands, is routinely set in motion by the temp track (Karlin
and Wright 2004, pp. 21-31).7 This renders the music editor increasingly influential in
defining and promulgating an amalgamation of conventions that we ultimately
experience from the score. In fact, this makes him or her a touchstone - an influential
governor whose choices can actively engage and perpetuate conventions and clich6s.
In building a temp track, a music editor must address and consolidate managerial,
commercial, musical and cultural concerns. Much like the film composer, his or her
musical inclinations are mediated within an interactive grid. Unlike a composer, a
music editor picks music for his or her temp tracks block by block - assembling the
The role of the music editor 167
compilation from completed cues, which bear a stylistic and affective resemblance to
the musical requirements for the project at hand. A music editor works with music
from an overall perspective, while a film composer must build moment by moment
from the ground up - from musical gesture and archetype. The music editor's vantage
point comes from a wholesale assessment of the conventional. He or she answers
collective demands and creatively addresses conventions.8
The 'silent' era - setting the stage: compilation scores

The ghostly, disappearing 'compiled' scores of today's music editors are similar to
the 'compiled' scores used live to accompany films until mechanised sound was
established in the motion picture business in 1929.
During the silent film era, two methods of scoring were established, compiling from pre-
existing material [The Compilation Score] and composing an original score. Before 1929 the
former type of score predominated. Original scores were really the exception. After 1929
original scores became the rule although low budget films continued to use pre-existing public
domain music. (Anderson 1988, p. xiv)
The temp track had its precursor in the silent era's compilation scores. Its serial
compiling of music formed the conceptual springboard from which the modern
soundtrack, an integration of popular and orchestral traditions, evolved. The music
director, pianist or conductor, performing essentially the same function as a music
editor in assembling temp tracks, compiled a score from well-known pieces of music,
in accordance with filmic and genre demands. However, inherent to producing both
temps and compilations, are the limitations of compiling via pre-existing music -
compiling and utilising block units, i.e. by using existing phrase structures, as
opposed to developing original thematic material and dovetailing timings in
synchronisation with the film.9
By 1920, for the purpose of aiding in the creation of compilation scores, 'many
of the major music publishers established special movie music departments and
published vast libraries of incidental music, organised by mood, tempo, and duration'
(Anderson 1988, p. xiii). For classical works and the vernacular, attempts to
standardise conventional usage and codify musical archetypes appear to be exempli-
fied in the catalogued collections of Giuseppe Becce and Hans Erdmann. Books such
as Erno Rapee's Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists (1924) and Erdmann
and Beece's Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik (1927) offered menu-driven collec-
tions with such descriptive headings as 'Love-Themes', 'Grotesque', 'Sea and Storm',
and 'National' - songs and music depicting the characters of a host of countries.
The compilation score was, in essence, a hybrid - constructed from unrelated
but often well-known pieces of popular and classical music, operating with the
dramatic earmarks of a composed score. The process, by which compilation scores
were assembled, bears a fundamental similarity to the music editor's creation of temp
tracks. The practice of the 'silent' era's most prominent compiler, Hugo Riesenfeld,
music director of New York's Rivoli and Roxy Theatres (Movie Palaces), is
documented:
... Mr. Riesenfeld has already seen the picture once, of course, so he began his search for music
of as certain well-defined type. Piece after piece (only a little of each, of course) was played on
the piano as this or that conductor would pick out one as a suggestion, and all that could be
gotten out of Mr. Riesenfeld was 'No,' 'Not that,' 'No, that won't do,' 'Oh, no, not that' - and all
the while the cameras [projector] were waiting to click their first inch of the film, not a picture
as yet having gone to the screen; the director had his head stuck deep in a folio of possibly two
hundred selections of a given type, every one of which he glanced through in his search for the
'right' one. Finally, it was found: and what a relief. 'Slower; oh, not so fast,' then 'Ah, that's it,'
and the ready amanuensis jotted down a few abbreviations to show that when the picture was
ready to begin the music would be this piece, and that so much of it would be used. A mark was
put lightly on the score. All that work for about sixty seconds' (sic) worth of music! ... The
piece, before being laid aside, was again played on the piano at proper tempo, that is at Mr.
Riesenfeld's own tempo, the director pushed the button, the picture announcement began, and
I almost thought that I was going to see a free picture show this time.... and this only tells a
small part of the story; it forgets all about the cuts, the arrangements, the slides and glides and
skips and hops through all musicdom in order to make these things go together in a proper
sequence of keys as one piece.
... After little snatches of the film are thus projected and music fitted intimately with the moods
of each, with proper record made of each separate bit of film and the music corresponding with
it, Mr. Riesenfeld takes the music under his wing and spends laborious hours over it, marking,
timing, cutting, trimming, fitting, and preparing it to time rightly with the film. When this is
done and the librarians and orchestrators have arranged and written such things as are needed
for the film, the film itself is taken in hand for revision. Projection machines can be made to run
at variable speeds to suit the occasion, and these speeds can be arbitrarily set by a projector
without interfering in any way with the picture; I doubt if any but a very skilled man would be
able to detect the many changes Mr. Riesenfeld must get from his operators. Many times the
titles and the joints in the film are deleted to just the right amount to make the film time exactly
with the music, while at other times the speed accomplishes the result. Thus after the music is
first fitted to the picture, the picture is then fitted exactly to the music. (Buhrmann 1920,
pp. 171-3)
Until 1929, published music and live performers were used during the selection
and compilation process. The compiled score was then performed live with the film.
Figures like Riesenfeld were well known and well regarded. Today, although the
process of selecting pre-existing music is similar, the music editor works with re-
corded compositions and machines, and his creation is replaced when the composed
score for the film is finished.
The music editor: overview
Today, music editors are venerable professionals and are unionised, represented by
major agencies such as 'Modern Music' in Los Angeles. Unlike composers and music
supervisors, whose names appear alongside the film director, director of photogra-
phy, picture editor, and producers, music editors do not receive principal, on-screen
credit. Thus, despite their influential contribution to the soundtrack, they operate
'under the radar' - acknowledged in end-credits, their craft and function largely
hidden from public view. They are chosen for a particular film based on a recommen-
dation from a director, picture editor, producer or composer. 'Hollywood is a
business of relationships. If you've worked with somebody and it's been successful,
you tend to work with them again and again' (Prendergast, 2004). Music editor,
Suzana Peric (Lord of The Rings, Silence Of the Lambs, The Pianist), has worked
repeatedly with the same directors, such as Mike Nichols and Jonathan Demme.
Entering the field through previous experience within the picture-editing realm,
music editors intuit both the visual and musical, although rarely do they have formal
training as composers or performers. Like directors, they are experienced and well
versed in the industry-operative film language. The tasks of music editors are two-
fold: (i) preparing temp tracks and (ii) assisting composers in managing the mech-
anics of synchronisation and preparing timings for cues. Due to scheduling conflicts,
they generally do not perform both jobs within a single film.10 Proximity to the
composer may grant the music editor access to aspects of the compositional process.
Music editors decide where to begin and end each music cue and interact with the
music supervisor and director. Thus, the music editor's functional sphere is broad,
and their perspective is unique.
Little known to scholars, primarily due to their virtual invisibility, temp tracks
are conceived and designed in direct collaboration with the director and picture
editor, before the composer becomes involved. The music editor, acting as a surrogate
composer, operates actively in overview mode, mediating the relationship between
the director's intent and the spectator's reception - perpetually validated by studio
screenings and audience previews.
The music editor begins the project11

Temp tracks are considered essential by producers, due to music's pivotal role in
unifying narrative elements, clarifying characters' motives and in defining the emo-
tional tone of a film. The choice of music used and the process by which it is employed
can reveal intent, manipulation, and a director's sense of reception.
The Music Editor can help define the music design for the whole film, before a composer ever
comes on. In a sense, he solves some of the musical problems for the composer - if the composer
agrees with it, obviously (Prendergast, 2nd July 2004).
Upon arrival on a project, a music editor screens a rough-cut of the film with the
director or picture editor. The film may contain a 'scratch track', i.e. a fragmented,
partially prepared temp track plus any source music, as laid in by the picture editor.
Initial discussions address the overall role that music serves for the film, how it
functions, and an appropriate style of scoring. Each 'cue' is specifically addressed
through a detailed 'spotting' of the film, i.e. the placement, and entrances and exits of
the music throughout the film. As important as the music chosen for a scene, music
placement is a key factor in determining how the music functions and editorialises the
story and has an effect on the flexibility that the composer will inherit.
Once the music editor is supplied with Quicktime12 movies of the film's cues and
has compiled a collection of appropriate musical cues for the project, he or she
assembles and edits via Digidesign's ProTools software. The agility with which music
can be 'cut' in and auditioned, enables the music editor to readily present the director
with three or four alternative musical approaches to a scene. The music editor,
compiling via the broad strokes of pre-existing cues, far outpaces a composer, who
must individually compose and then produce a MIDI-mockup13 of each cue. A
completed cue by the music editor may require a few, or dozens of edits in suturing
multiple sections and phrases, at times drawn from a variety of pre-existing cues.
Music libraries, offering the digital audio equivalent of Erno Rapee's Motion Picture
Moods for Pianists and Organists, may also be incorporated, although they are most
appropriate for ambient, 'source' cues. In connecting sections, smoothing transitions,
and accentuating visual or narrative points, music editors may draw from their
collection of musical devices, utilised for 'layering', or 'sweetening'14 - single, high,
sustained violin notes; low, sub-harmonic tones; cymbal rolls and crashes. Musical
and synchronisation challenges are also resolved through digital manipulations,
enabling such functions as time expansion and compression, pitch shifting, and
cross-fading.
Industry nomenclature: score-source-scource

The music editor is temporarily responsible for three things, in the industry's words:
the 'score', the 'source music', and 'scource music', i.e. source music acting as score.
These terms appear to offer clear demarcations, yet they frequently cross over, both by
design and context. Source, i.e. music emanating from within the narrative frame, and
possibly heard by the characters in the scene, is generally comprised of pre-existing
music, although in the course of a scene, its function may transform to score. This
phenomenon is understood by practitioners and is often designed into the architec-
ture of a scene. Score, infinitely pliable, can manipulate and metamorphose, clouding
lines of functional demarcation - even emulating source. Music editors and directors,
inventing and defining the soundscape, operate in broad, intuitive, musical strokes in
referencing filmic demands. Although primarily concerned with achieving creative
solutions toward a desired effect, they answer simultaneously to the studio hierarchy,
and subsequently the studio marketing department's idea of the spectator. In practice,
their nomenclature, simple and direct, documents their intentions and their solutions
for their perceivers.15
Roy Prendergast: music editing in Los Angeles

Tears of the Sun (2003)
Cue: Lena's Story16

Director: Antoine Fuqua
Picture editor: Conrad Buff
Composer: Hans Zimmer
Temp track: Roy Prendergast17
Tears of the Sun, a large-scale, military thriller set in war-torn Nigeria, pairs a veteran
Navy seal, Lt Waters (Bruce Willis), on a rescue assignment with a doctor, Lena
Hendricks (Monica Bellucci), who refuses to abandon refugees in her care. After
Waters joins her in belief and action, a rebel militia group seeks to assassinate him and
the refugees. In the scene entitled Lena's Story occurring midway through the film, we
are privy to an intimate moment of reckoning for both characters - a strategic narra-
tive point which conveys a tremendous amount of key information. The script
economically teases out their feelings and the ethical pulse of the principal characters.
Shot in extreme close-up, through a series of shot-reverse-shots over a series of
narrative vignettes, we learn why Dr Hendricks came to Africa; that her husband died
while protecting her during a rebel attack; and insights into Lt Waters through an
expos6 of his actions and ethics.
For the underscoring, the director wanted something quiet, but did not want to
suggest any kind of romantic involvement between Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci.
Their on-screen chemistry had not proven 'credible' with test audiences, thus neces-
sitating narrative and picture changes. Due to skilful editing and some re-shooting of
scenes, there are no remnants of romance in the script or the editing. The director's
clear approach to what music must not do in this scene reflects some of the narrative
restructuring that was necessary.
In Previews, anytime there were scenes between Willis and Bellucci that played as romance, the
audience laughed out loud. They didn't buy it. Those scenes were cut... There were scenes at
slowly ExanpleI
Strings Wo o ooI 1
_o m. l ( [_ .-._ 1 7_7-l
Example 1. Lena's Story temp track cue music and screen shots from Tears of the Sun.
the end of the movie where they embraced and kissed - the audience laughed every time - so
those scenes are gone."8
Roy Prendergast worked primarily with the picture editor, Conrad Buff, who has a
rich history in editing large-scale Hollywood films with romantic subplots. While
Prendergast also had contact with the director, it is common for the picture editor to
act on behalf of the director. Prendergast spotted the entire film, essentially defining
how the score would interact with the narrative and visual elements. In agreement
with Buff and director, Antoine Fuqua, they envisioned the music as subdued
throughout the film - polarised and reflective against the violence on the screen.
Although Prendergast had no direct contact with the composer, Hans Zimmer,
Zimmer's score reflected essentially the same approach.
According to Prendergast, Fuqua's directions for the scene, Lena's Story, were to
elicit a general sadness and tragedy for the situation, but also to sustain an element of
warmth. Prendergast realised that the music would be most effective if it played the
character of the situation, not of Lt Water's and Dr Hendrick's relationship. 'This
approach, conveyed to the director by Buff, drifted through to Hans Zimmer in the
course of his spotting session with the director. Zimmer obviously approached it in
exactly the same way in his score'.19
The scene was temped20 with a cue entitled, I Opened the Door (2000),21 from
Alan Silvestri's score for the film What Lies Beneath (dir. Zemeckis 2000).22 A super-
natural thriller, it is scored quietly and sparsely, utilising the approach of Bernard
Herrmann in Vertigo and in the more seething cues from Psycho, yet occasionally
erupting in clear allusions to Psycho's opening music. The cue that Prendergast uses
for his temp begins in the original film, What Lies Beneath, under a conversation
concerning a dead girl's ghostly appearances in a couple's Vermont home. It enters,
barely perceptible, under the line, 'It's the only thing that makes sense', at 1:21:25. The
tempo is very slow, and the phrasing is fragmentary and halting: phrase-pause-
phrase-pause. This allows great latitude in editing the cue into manageable slices,
thus avoiding unwanted musical developments that occur later in the film. This kind
of cue can also accommodate the negotiation around dialogue.
Although in CO minor, it opens with a very soft piano and harp figure, only
outlining the key pensively, under a sustained GO in the strings (Example 1). Upon
hearing the cue without first knowing the film, this author noted that there are no
overt gestures, but generally, pensive and reflectively tragic qualities. Later in the cue,
however, there are GO-A trills in the high strings, which evoke an entirely new
dimension. Prendergast did not incorporate those sections in his temp. Prendergast
chose this cue simply by hearing it on the CD from the film's soundtrack. He had no
prior knowledge of its context. However, it is common for him to describe his needs to
his music librarian, Chris Mangione, who may quickly offer five similar cues - their
native contexts, generally not a factor in Prendergast's choice. The chosen Silvestri
cue, I opened the Door, contains elements that coalesce into an archetype of reflective
sadness or tragedy.
Once convinced that the Silvestri cue would work effectively, the starting point
was crucial in setting the scene properly. The role of the music was to play the
'situation', not the relationship between Lt Waters and Dr Lena Hendricks.
[The music starts] over the previous scene's couple, so that the music, in a sense, could attach
itself to them - so that when you came upon the Willis and Bellucci characters, it was already
there and has less of an impact. Music tends to attach itself where it starts, and if you start it on
Willis and Bellucci, subconsciously the listener thinks, 'This is important - this is about them'.23
The gentle opening musical gestures (CO-GO-E - CO-GO-A) establish CO minor,

allowing the note A to create the feeling that it is stretching away (a melancholy
longing),24 yet due to harmonic stability, destined to return. This underscores the
previous scene, in the couple's reflective sadness, beginning after the line, 'Will you
get me to my daughter?' As Lt Waters and Dr Hendricks are revealed via a slow
dissolve and pull-in, a sustained GO in the strings warms the tone of the scene. The
note GO, beginning with a slight crescendo, provides a searing, emotional intensity
to the underlying horrors that Willis and Bellucci have witnessed. The cue also
intensifies via a widening pitch range and thickening orchestration.
Prendergast notes, 'Many times the music editor has solved the dramatic
problem, musically'. In Zimmer's score, his music enters at exactly the same point as
the temp, and is nearly identical in its focal points of dramatic import. However, his is
custom-composed for the scene: it is carefully composed around dialogue and its
sound is sculpted to the proportion of the scene. Prendergast notes that Zimmer's
music ' "clears the line" - [he] writes around dialogue more easily than the temp. [It
is] more effective than the temp - less 'rich' than temp cue'. Zimmer both follows the
dramatic contour of the temp, but offers a significantly modified approach to the
actual composition. Like the temp, he uses a sustained, underlying tone (pedal point)
for much of the cue. Further into the cue, he broadens the sonority, introducing basses,
accompanying the line, 'How did your husband die?' Overall, Zimmer creates a
surreal sound, eliciting the reflective disillusionment of the moment, as opposed to a
quiet longing in the temp. Zimmer's creates a hybrid orchestration - a mix of an
ethereal synthesizer sound and orchestral strings. It is slight in size, yet colouring the
atmosphere while slowly moving around the conversation. His harmonic language,
operating within an unobtrusive sound palette, mixes suspended harmonies (4-3)
against major and minor clashes and ambiguities - a collage of raw inflections and
sustained pathos (Example 2). Melodic movement often seems unmeasured,
although illuminating points of tension and repose. E major contains the note A,
which constitutes a major harmony and a suspended scale degree 4, and a seventh is
added as well. A derivative of A minor appears, which is generally not part of E major.
A resolution in E minor frames the presence of Willis and Bellucci, with an elision
toward the next phrase.
Dr. Hendricks continues her story and the intensity of her tragic experience
begins to unfold: 'We went to Sierra Leone .. .'. Zimmer again begins in E major with
Example 2 Example 2-A
{ Examl do
Example 2. Lena's Story final score cue music from Tears of the Sun.
an added suspension, but the melody moves to the note C, the same minor sixth
interval that was accentuated in the temp, now with more dissonance (representing
pain) because it is pitted against the expectation in E major. Zimmer's phrasings
reflect the fragmented melodic/harmonic constructs of the temp, but synchronisation
is now employed, allowing the phrases to be thoughtfully composed around the
dialogue. Like Prendergast's temp, Zimmer's phrases are short and relatively com-
plete, although the melodic movement is largely subsumed within the collaged
harmonies and synthesised ambience (Example 2a).
Prendergast demonstrated the capacity of music to manipulate our perceptions,
in this case by avoiding amorous implications between Bruce Willis and Monica
Bellucci. The effect of music's motion and emotion on the perception of visual and
narrative elements is an area of growing interest for researchers in cognitive psy-
chology (Cohen 1994, 2001). They are examining tenets of film music theory and
probing the effects of musical affect on perception - both holding implications for
textual analyses. In one compelling study, the researcher acted as a music editor,
providing two alternative temp tracks for a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo
(Boltz 2001). Responding individually to three viewings of the scene as accompanied
by 'positive', 'negative', and no music, the participants offered their resultant inter-
pretations of narrative events; the main character's personality/motivations; affective
impact; and memory recall. Boltz concluded, 'the main finding of this experiment is
that music influenced the comprehension and memory of filmed material' (Boltz
2001, p. 444). These findings 'verify' the editorial powers of music, but the choice and
treatment of music within this study could have benefited from an awareness of
post-production practices and aesthetics. One selection, Samuel Barber's Adagio for
Strings, was pre-tested and deemed as 'positive' music (Boltz 2001, p. 454) - yet this is
the same piece of music which provides the wholesale pathos for every scene of
post-battle carnage in Oliver Stone's Platoon. While this anomaly does not compro-
mise Boltz' conclusions, it does suggest a need for researchers to embrace practitioners
in their domain.
Addressing a far broader scope, the transformation of music from temp to score
can provide a rich context for the study of semiotics, an area common to film and film
music enquiry. In the post-production process, semiological meanings metamor-
phose, progressively accumulating more specifically encoded gestures. Initiated
through the broad archetypes chosen from pre-existing music, their associations are
refined in the process of spotting and editing, and are ultimately transformed by the
score's integration and setting of specific music-visual/narrative associations.
In observing through post-production's time-lapse of intent, the film's contextual
lexicon of audio-visual constructs emerges.
Music editors are deprived of the ability to develop thematic material, which is
generally regarded as the DNA for a score's structure. Cues and phrases culled from
various scores, and detached from their original contexts, can present a disparate and
disenfranchised collection of musical vignettes - motivic germs and phrases; a
breadth of highly suggestive moods; connotative suggestions; and implications for
identifications with familiar (but not specific) characters, places and ideologies. In
essence, music editors re-appropriate music that had been composed to serve the
specific needs of other filmic contexts. Nevertheless, anyone who has witnessed the
construction of a temp track by a professional music editor is struck by the effective
and natural quality of these re-purposed cues in a 'foreign' context. They manage to
sustain a dynamic and coherent 'score' for a film's entirety, without benefit of a
thematic thread. This suggests that, although specific gestures within these cues
provided adhesion to specific elements in the original film, they must also have
operated in tandem with more general musical archetypes or conventions.
Specific to the film and cue, I Opened the Door, was the trill section mentioned
earlier, which Prendergast was not able to use in his temp track. Prendergast de-
scribed their presence, 'The trills are too busy and dramatic'. At 1:22:23 of What Lies
Beneath, the character played by Harrison Ford mentions the word 'paranormal', and
Silvestri enunciates and references this with soft trills in the upper strings. In this cue,
the score addresses a specific narrative element of a film, i.e. the supernatural, thus
rooting it to the film - quite literally via precise synchronisation. Trills also appear
when the viewer sees the ghost underwater, near the end of the film. Trills in
themselves are, of course, not necessarily evocative of anything specific. However,
given the appropriate musical setting, they have a long history in representing ghosts,
the supernatural, and perhaps fear, as in Liszt's Mephisto Waltz,25 and in Herrmann's
'recognition scene' in Vertigo.
There are also instances in which the musical archetype within a pre-existing cue
is so overused or recognisable, that it has, in effect, become a cultural icon. This limits
its re-use to irony, comedy or commentary, i.e. Bernard Herrmann's slashing, glis-
sandi shower-violins from Psycho. The choice of a popular song may suffer or gain
similarly: I agree that in the act of conscious recognition, the spectator initially
perceives the music in a 'fixed' state, unable to experience it as part of a process,
unfolding in time.
Film scores encompass a vast array of musical semiotic codes, conventions, and
identifications (Gorbman 1989; Tagg and Clarida 2003; Kassabian 2001). While film
music may evoke only generalised referential meanings when detached from its
original settings, a new set of specific meanings appear to arise upon contact within a
related filmic context. So strong and adaptable are the codes that composers are often
confounded by the boundaries that temp tracks impose. A composer's assessment of
a temp track is also contingent on the proficiency of the music editor and to how
attached the director and studio are to the temp. The example above is one which
demonstrates integral, collaborative efforts - the temp track intelligently designed by
an excellent music editor and picture editor, and aptly enhanced by the composer.
However, so frequent, consistent and confounding are the conventions that, upon
watching a newly released film, music editors often comment, 'I know what that was
temped with!'
Suzana Peric and Nancy Allen: music editing in New York City
While New York City is the epicentre of American feature film financing, the city of
Los Angeles is synonymous with the film industry - from deal making through
production, marketing and release. While major films are produced in New York,
aspects of its post-production operations differ significantly from L.A. New York is
more akin to a 'cottage industry', perhaps reflecting a smaller, more tightly woven
network. For instance, the mixing stage in L.A. generally utilises three sound mixers -
one each for dialogue, sound effects, and music. In New York there is usually only one
mixer. There are only a handful of top music editors in New York, compared to
approximately 150 in L.A.,26 thirty of them considered part of the upper echelon.
Exemplary of New York music editors, Suzana Peric27 creates the temp and continues
on with the composer, working on the synchronisation and timings. In contrast, while
L.A.-based Roy Prendergast has worked on over twenty films in collaboration with
composer Patrick Doyle, he provided the temps for only a fraction of those same films.
Since 1982, Peric has worked repeatedly with the same directors and composers.
Citing camaraderie and efficiency in working repeatedly with the same professionals,
she noted that the team really helps to shape the temp, although she offers the initial
musical ideas: 'In working with the same people, there are shared sensibilities that
result in working in a kind of shorthand' (Peric, 21 July 2004). Peric has also collabo-
rated with the same composers over many years, including Ennio Morricone, Howard
Shore, and Rachel Portman. Often knowing who the composer will be prior to creating
the temp, she can address the perspectives of both director and composer. If there
exists a strong mutual thread of vision between the two, Peric will try to provide a
clear set of signposts for the composer, without handcuffing him or her. Always
guided by her idea of audience perception, Peric also sees her role as a mediator, or
facilitator, between director and composer and even an advocate for the composer:
Suzana gives the composer a lot of pre-information and the overall broad strokes ... we provide
very detailed information about specific 'hit points' and 'low tones' that the director wants. We
also try to create a temp according to the composer's style and vision of the score (Allen, N.,
13 July 2004).
In Peric's temp for The Human Stain, she used Alexandre Desplat's score from
Read My Lips, which featured an abundance of moody cues with sustained strings,
and a 'not heavy' texture. This was intended, in part, to match composer Rachel
Portman's approach to the score. For The Pianist, where she knew that Wojciech Kilar
would be the composer, she temped it with music from his score for Dracula. In The
Age of Innocence, Peric created the temp from music which was pre-composed by
Elmer Bernstein - over a third of the score, including four main themes (Peric, 21 July
2004). Nancy Allen28 noted that most music editors over-utilise particular scores and
composers in their temp tracks - something which she and Peric consciously avoid.
Among the scores cited that have been used extensively in temp tracks, were Thomas
Newman's scores for Shawshank Redemption and American Beauty, and James Newton
Howard's score for The Fugitive, specifically for his chase cues. While Allen considers
these to be excellent scores, their overuse in temps dampens and restricts a composer's
use of original ideas. Peric did note, however, a remarkable flexibility in Thomas
Newman's scores, presenting rich, but more generalised emotions - readily transfer-
able and effective for a variety of similar situations. In combating a reliance on
conventional approaches, Peric will use classical music in a temp, a practice that
Prendergast rarely utilises.29 Peric will also contribute to a composer's freedom by
temping part of a film with a composer's concert music. When asked which particular
cues she might use for a specific mood, Peric replied that she does not think in those
terms - she approaches each cue and film individually - even her extensive personal
CD library is not arranged by mood, or by film where it was previously used in a temp.
Philadelphia (1993)
Cue: 'Promoted'
30Director: Jonathan Demme
Composer: Howard Shore
Songwriter: Bruce Springsteen
Temp track & final score:31 Suzana Peric
While the vast majority of the two hundred and fifty top-grossing films contain an
orchestral score,32 popular songs have increasingly appeared alongside them over the
past fifteen years. However, songs are seldom integrated into the film, via the score.
The following analysis of the 'Promoted' cue from Philadelphia was informed and
driven by discussions with Suzana Peric and Roy Prendergast. They provided
insights and facilitated a kind of archaeological path in discovering the relationship
between song and score, and revealing elements of Howard Shore's compositional
process. Suzana Peric supplied information concerning the actual cue, 'Promoted', as
well as the range of music utilised in her temp track, i.e. cues drawn from Shore's
scores for The Silence of The Lambs and films by David Cronenberg.33 She also
confirmed that Bruce Springsteen's song, The Streets of Philadelphia, had been edited
into the opening of the film, prior to Howard Shore's composing of the score.34
Knowing that Shore had access to the song before embarking on composing the score,
they provide a window into his creative approach in incorporating salient material
from the song. This also bolstered my initial sense, that the song and score bore an
integral relationship.
Also preceding my analysis was Roy Prendergast's35 assessment of the score's
narrative function which he saw as defining the completion of the film's exposition,
and heralding that the story has begun (Prendergast, 27 June 2004). Prendergast
considered everything up until the scene in Andy's loft as a brief and tightly written
exposition. He noted that his instincts would also have led him to temp the scene at
Andy's loft with music powerful enough to delineate the narrative coherently. In sum,
he found all premises had been revealed in the exposition: the key characters were
introduced; that Andy was working on an important case; and Andy's need to keep
his HIV hidden. Now the audience must be drawn into the film so that the intensity of
the plot can commence. This is heralded by the score, which Prendergast felt was
intensified through Shore's subtle referencing of Springsteen's song.
Analysis
The first major commercial film to document the societal plight of the AIDS epidemic,
presenting a graphic depiction of what it was to be Gay in the early 1990's, is set in an
old-world corporate law firm in Philadelphia. The opening aerial shot of the city is
removed and muted, accompanied by the unfolding instrumental introduction to a
song, exuding a foreboding feeling. Guitar chords oscillate rhythmically between F
major and A minor - a pairing of light and shadow. But this is not the traditional
pairing of major to relative minor familiar to popular songs: A Day In the Life begins
Figure 1. Screen shots from Philadelphia.
with G major ('I read the news today') and moves to E minor ('Oh Boy'). Billy Joel's
Piano Man's opening chords begin with C and then A minor. Conventional usage of
major to relative minor can, of course, aid in creating a dimension of narrative complex-
ity and subtext, i.e. Piano Man's irony in which Billy Joel pits a happy entertainer
persona against inner turmoil, and A Day in the Life, which presents a semi-psychedelic
journey as metaphor for revolting against an existence lived in the mundane.
Bruce Springsteen's pairing of light and dark is unconventional and severe in its
progression from F Major to A minor, which are also the essential chords drawn
from Chopin's Funeral March (Bb minor - Gb Major). However, because the chords
begin on F Major, instead of A minor, a direct reference (or perception) to the Funeral
March is averted. Visually, the opening shot is otherworldly: there is an overhead shot
of Philadelphia, similar to the opening of Interview With The Vampire, where Elliot
Goldenthal's gothic soprano-of-the-night fills the sky over San Franscisco. Uncharac-
teristic of a rock ballad, The Streets of Philadelphia is shrouded in the deep, film-sound
bass notes, F and A. The guitar chords are doubled and sustained by a synthesizer,
mimetic of a church organ which is a funereal variation of the conventional Roland
string patch. High, synthesised strings wail between the notes F and E, the only two
notes not in common between F Major and A minor, induce a filmic pathos. The Streets
of Philadelphia is produced as a hybrid, infused with elements of sound design,
common to film sound and film music. It undergirds Springsteen's stolid lyrics of
paired opposites, alternating images of the pleasantries of a bustling city life and those
who are disenfranchised: volleyball games, welfare lines, children heading for school,
homeless in the park.
I was unrecognisable to myself
Saw my reflection in a window
I didn't know my own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me wasting away

On the streets of Philadelphia
A montage of events flows, which introduces the protagonist Andrew Beckett, a

rising corporate lawyer, and many of the supporting characters. Andy, representing
the corporate mainstream, is initially seen arguing against the Denzel Washington
character, representing the downtrodden proletariat. We follow Andy as he catches a
cab to the AIDS clinic and we witness ravaged victims. In a continuous stream of
events, we enter his law firm, where he receives kudos for winning a case, banters with
para-legals and secretaries, and reports to his mother on his HIV, invoking a hint of her
emotional turmoil. He works on an important case at night and is called into the office
of the firm's partners, where another chain of events unfurls. Andy's legal competence
is established via his astute assessment of a case, he is promoted to senior associate and
another partner notes a lesion on his forehead which Andy brushes off as a tennis
accident. Howard Shore's cue, 'Promoted', begins within this montage of events.
Example 3
Harp (
Vln i
Vc/Cb
Example 3. 'Promoted' final score cue music and screen shots from Philadelphia.
We jump to a shot of the exterior of Andy's loft, moving inside to see him hard at
work on an important case. The music begins here in earnest - continuing with
underlying harmonies, outlined in nervous sixteenths in the harp and flutes, tremolos
in middle strings: Db Major and Db minor oscillating back and forth, moving to A
minor and F minor oscillating back and forth. High strings sustain searing long notes,
culminating in a high A to Ab over the A minor to F minor change when we see Andy
in his cap, his lesions partially exposed. Oscillating and juxtaposed major and minor
chords are now dissonant and discombobulated, yet the notes F and E of Db major and
Db minor are also the only notes not in common, reflecting back to the F and E of the
Springsteen song's opening.36 Furthermore, Shore's variation on Springsteen's A
minor to F major not only utilises the notes F and E as not being in common, but
provides a structural association (Example 3, third measure).
This thumbnail musical-cultural analysis was informed by Prendergast's initial
observations. The film's narrative pairs the opposites of a traditional heterosexual
society, exemplified in the ultra-traditional setting of an upscale corporate law firm,
and the 'sub-culture' of early 1990's homophobia and its associated AIDS'epidemic. In
Bruce Springsteen's Streets of Philadelphia, the oscillating chords in the song's intro-
duction are melancholy, reflective, and metaphoric of the protagonist's societal al-
ienation. In direct contrast, but thematically connected by paired major/minor (and
the notes F and E), Howard Shore's cue is frantic and claustrophobic, as if in the midst
of an anxiety attack. No longer are the chords introspective of light and dark,
reflections on life and death, the chords are now juxtaposed and crushed into each
other. The musical gestures and narrative import exude what it is to feel the unwanted
forces tightening their grip; a virtual and visceral fear. The film's brief but
information-laden exposition is undergirded by Springsteen's music, while Howard
Shore's imaginative and structurally connected score conjures forth the narrative's
inner-personal affective world - the subjective day-to-day horror that the ensuing
story reveals. Prendergast's intuition, validated by Peric's confirmation of Shore's
access, focused this analysis and suggested a textual reading by which a collective
consciousness represented in the song coalesces with personal turmoil via the score.
In the loft scene a subtext emerges through Shore's score which subtly and simul-
taneously serves in two capacities. Initially, it supplies the affective backing for
Andy's immediate predicament. However, by infusing elements from the song,
the score obtains a narrative role embodied in its resonance of a personal voice
empowered by collective anguish.
Knowledge acquired from interviews and aspects of Philadelphia's post-
production processes, is germane to the interests of a new generation of musicologists.
Musicologists, such as those cited in this paper, are embracing film music by peering
into the creative processes and intentions of its composers, and proffering textual
criticism of individual scores. Through comparative analyses of the Springsteen song
and Shore's score, coupled with a knowledge of the composer's chronology of access
to these materials, a musical etiology emerges. Answering to film music's collabora-
tive creative modalities, musicologists are designing broadened analytical paradigms,
infusing their field with semiotics, psychology, and cultural studies. In tandem with
its legacy of traditional research models, musicological inquiry into Howard Shore's
composition processes would inevitably result in more eclectic and interdisciplinary
approaches. A reading of Philadelphia couched in the cultural stigma of homosexuality
is one example.
Closing thoughts
The purpose of this article is to elucidate the constitutive nature of film music as more
integral to enquiry. The discussion and analyses answer a methodological need,
reflecting the fragmented and collaborative functions in the creation of a film score. In
the past seven years the disciplinary approaches for analysing film music have
increased, now including cognitive studies, gender studies, popular music studies,
and culture studies. Recent texts (Buhler, Flinn, Neumeyer 2002, and Donelly 2001 )37,
articles (Anderson, Riis, Sadoff 2004, pp. 1-13) and conferences have paired prac-
titioners and scholars (Anderson and Sadoff 2001), and juxtaposed eclectic ap-
proaches (Goldmark, Kramer and Leppert 2004). Indeed, a collaborative art may
require collaborative analysis (Anderson and Sadoff 2004).38
Although the film composer has often been documented as a central figure,
his/her role is, for the time being, diminishing. Songs are routinely placed without his
or her knowledge or approval, the music is sometimes shuffled, and the strategic
musical design is often pre-determined by musically untrained directors, clich&-
driven music supervisors, and editors. Modern production protocols are complex,
collaborative, economy-driven, and splintered. The industry's conversion to the
digital realm has transformed the post-production environment for image and sound.
Songs and score are often created via the same composition software. Surround sound
now permits a gnat's wings, beating against a windowpane, to dominate a sound-
scape. Sound design is routinely infused as an element of the score and is no longer
under the aegis of the composer. Because editing stations allow picture editors to cut
the film effortlessly and endlessly, it is difficult to lock the picture39 even though all of
the elements have been assembled, including the recorded score.
The temp track is a multi-level blueprint as well as barometer, revealing
an essential vision of intent, the employment of cultural/affective codes, and
audio-visual conventions. In creating temp tracks, music editors attempt to
accommodate a triumvirate of creative forces - director, music supervisor, and com-
poser. In addressing the modern soundtrack's increased use of songs, music editors
can offer much insight into the analytical process. Their insights into their ideas of the
perceiver, the reciprocal half of the creative equation, offer significant implications for
critical inquiry. Their tasks are accomplished via an intuitive, multidisciplinary ap-
proach, enmeshed in a collective ecosystem, perpetually informing and re-defining
itself through checks and balances. Analysis of the music editor's creative product,
concomitant with the finished film score, provides a constitutive view of the film score
that is considerably broader than findings in current approaches and potentially of far
greater pedagogical value to aspiring film composers.
The music editor, serving as a portal into a broader creative continuum,
implicitly bridges film music and film. In proximity, we become cognisant of music
perpetually undergoing contextualisation within the filmic universe. We witness a
dynamic process which is impossible to garner from secondary sources. Looking to
the related study of film sound, we find a paradigmatic corollary in its integral
inclusion of practitioner-scholars like Walter Murch and Michel Chion. Informed by
theory and practice, Murch, picture editor and sound editor for The English Patient
and The Godfather, embodies a film and film sound organicity. Concomitantly, the
analytical lens of film sound inquiry addresses a broad sphere; the sound-inclusive
soundscape inextricably bound to narrative/filmic contexts. Similarly, film music's
post-production processes require collaborative and interdisciplinary efforts of
its practitioners within the corporate film music forum. Its inherent checks and
balances and its fluid collegial discourse between director, editor, music editor, and
producer suggest an industrial mirror for scholarly collaboration. The temp track,
in its accessibility to musician and non-musician alike, serves as the touchstone
from which a concerted sculpting of musical design, concept, and associa-
tions emanate. Comprised of what is familiar to us all, the temp track is
'music-in-common' -popular music and a gateway toward informing textual
analysis.
Copyright acknowledgements
'I Opened The Door', from the motion picture What Lies Beneath, by Alan Silvestri.
Copyright ? 2000 SKG Songs (ASCAP) and TCF Music Publishing Inc. (ASCAP). All
rights for SKG Songs administered by Cherry Lane Music Publishing Company, Inc.
International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
'The Missing Document', music by Howard Shore ? Copyright 1993 Sony/ATV
Music Publishing (UK) Limited/TSP Music Incorporated, USA. Used by permission
of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
'Heart Of Darkness', music by Hans Zimmer ? Copyright 2003 J R Motion
Picture Music Company Sony/ATV Music Publishing (UK) Limited. Used by
permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright
Secured.
Endnotes
1. The terms Score, Source and Scource (source York. Interview with Music editor Nancy Allen,
music functioning as underscore) are film 30 June 2004.
industry terms-operative definitions within 11. My thanks to Roy M. Prendergast for a wealth of
the film-making process. information on temp tracks and the role of the
2. 'Test screenings may seem at first to be another music editor, garnered from guest appear-
symptom of a poll-driven culture. But comedy ances in my film music seminars at New York
makers have been recasting, reshooting and University, and through interviews from 2000-
re-editing based on research screenings since 2004. Mr Prendergast, author of Film Music: A
Mack Sennett churned out his silent shorts in Neglected Art, is also one of Hollywood's top
the 20's'. music editors, having provided temps for such
3. David Raksin (2002) noted that temp tracks films as Terminator 3, Shakespeare in Love, and
were in existence when he arrived in Holly- Road Trip.
wood in the late 1930's.
12. Quicktime movies are a cross-platform, digital
4. Foley is named after an early designer of movie playback format, developed by Apple
re-created sound, Jack Foley. Computer.
5. The music supervisor often assists the director 13. MIDI-mockups are electronic versions of the
or producer in choosing pre-existing songs for score which detail how the score will ultimately
films. Responsible for negotiating a song's sound when fully orchestrated and recorded.
licensing agreement and clearing its rights, they Ranging from 'sketchy' to fully blown, they can
have ongoing relationships with major and be very time-consuming to produce, having
independent record labels, and are generally spawned a cottage industry of specialists.
ensconced in the music industry. Required of most composers, MIDI-mockups
6. The following anecdote suggests an increas- provide directors with their only window into
ingly antagonistic stance between composers hearing and discussing the score prior to live
and music supervisors. I am not at liberty to recording sessions. Due to incessant picture
reveal the source, except to say that the person is editing, composers must often alter or re-write
an Academy Award-winning film composer: In cues, even at recording sessions. Music editors
an industry-funded conference, an audience often make further adjustments on the final
member enquired as to how one might train dubbing stage.
toward becoming a music supervisor, to which 14. A term used in recording studios for electroni-
the composer replied, 'If you could become a cally improving the quality of an audio or video
low-level member of the Gambino crime family,
signal, such as adding sound effects, audio
that would be a good start'. ambience, etc.
7. Largely drawn from the perspective of film
15. The analogous academic terms, 'diegetic' and
composers, this chapter presents an informative
'non-diegetic', are paired opposites, and offer
overview of temp tracks.
no functional middle-ground term like
8. My knowledge of music editors and their prac-
'scource'. Brown (1994, p. 61) notes the term's
tices is informed by a decade of discussions and
usefulness, and discusses a series of situations
observations with industry-acknowledged pro-
which clearly demonstrate crossover function-
fessionals such as Roy M. Prendergast and
Susana Peric. Further, I have maintained contact ality. A priori, the terms 'diegetic music' and
'non-diegetic music' situate film music as
with NYU Film Scoring alumni whose careers
measured against the 'diegesis'. This suggests a
have flourished in this area: Nancy Allen and
hierarchy, positioning the narrative and visual,
Emmy-nominated editor and composer John
at least initially, as bifurcated from sound
Wineglass (All My Children). Finally, I draw
(Kassabian 2001, p. 43). These sets of nomencla-
from personal experience, in composing pri-
ture reflect discipline-specific perspectives, i.e.
marily for documentaries for film and network
from the film industry and film studies. How-
television - invariably working with directors,
ever, all of the terms can be useful and there may
producers, and their temp tracks.
9. However, there are modern corollaries in suc- be a middle ground. Michel Chion (1994, p. 73),
a scholar and practitioner, offers a wealth
cessfully composing in large blocks. Ennio
of terminology drawn from both worlds:
Morricone primarily composes strong,
acousmatic, offscreen, onscreen, nondiegetic.
emotional-laden cues in long phrases with static
16. Ch. 17, 'Lena's Story', Tears of The Sun, 01:09:02.
orchestrations - essentially laid in parallel
'against' simultaneously changing visual and 17. My appreciation to Roy Prendergast for sharing
narrative events. Nevertheless, most sound his temp track, working protocols, and insights
era scores bear an essential difference from into this scene. Interview, 2 July 2004.
18. Ibid.
compilation scores, in that they are comprised
of a series of non-continuous, individual 19. Ibid.
cues.
20. Temp is the industry shorthand for temp
10. Perhaps an indication of differences between track, also extended for use as a verb:
film-making in Los Angeles and New York, this 'temped'. 'Tracked' is alternatively used by
is not generally true of music editors in New music editors.
21. Silvestri, A., 'I Opened the Door', What Lies 32. An informal survey, in accordance with
Beneath. Varese Sarabande CD, 302 066 172-2, information garnered from the Internet Movie
2000. Database (www.imdb.com), 17 October 2003.
22. What Lies Beneath, 01:21:25. The American Film Institute's 'Top 10 Films',
23. Interview with Roy Prendergast, 2 July 2004. based on 'outstanding achievement', for 2000-
24. Tagg and Clarida (2003, pp. 217-20, 444-50) 2003, exhibits essentially the same finding (23
demonstrate an association of the interval of the July 2004).
minor sixth with longing, which is an extension 33. Conversely, Roy Prendergast has rarely been
of releasing emotional tension. Their argu- able to utilise a composer's previous scores,
ment, positing sixths as mimetic sighs (sonic although he temped the film Terminator 3 with
anaphones), historically traces the interval from cues from prior scores of Marco Beltrami.
Bach to Wagner to Olwen's Dream, to the 34. It is not a common practice to commission a
'Lassie' theme and Nina Rota's theme from Love song from a major pop artist, for a film. How-
Story. ever, this was the case for Philadelphia. In fact,
25. Scott's (2003, pp. 128-51) expos6 of Liszt's two songs were commissioned by director
typology of the demonic, cites many of Liszt's Jonathan Demme - one from Neil Young and
demonic-entitled works, noting that the salient one from Bruce Springsteen. Neil Young's song
musical gestures include not only trills and appears during the final credits.
ornaments, but slithering chromaticism and 35. This was Mr Prendergast's initial viewing of the
open fifths. In the Silvestri cue, note that C film.
minor is arpeggiated in an open voicing (C-G- 36. In further suggesting organic compositional ties
Eb), thus eliciting a repetitious drone, bifurcat- to the Springsteen song, Shore composes in the
ing the note Eb and enunciating the open fifth. non-standard key of Db major/minor, perhaps
26. This is a general assessment based on conversa- avoiding the awkward enharmonic equivalents
tions with Suzana Peric and Roy Prendergast. of the notes E to F in CO major/minor.
27. Suzana Peric has provided valuable infor- 37. 'It may well be that film-music studies will
mation in interviews and as a lecturer in my eventually need to adopt a team approach, like
film scoring seminars at New York University film production itself, in order to overcome
since 1995. She recently completed work on The some of the more intractable research and criti-
Manchurian Candidate.
cal issues in the field; in so doing, of course, it
28. Nancy Allen has worked as a music editor, would depart from the traditional humanities
exclusively with Suzana Peric, from Martin model of solitary scholarship' (Neumeyer in
Scorsese's Kundun in 1997, through the recent Buhler et al. 2002, p. 8).
Manchurian Candidate, directed by Jonathan 38. This is a proposal for devising a new, collabora-
Demme.
tive method for the analysis of moving images.
29. Prendergast generally does not employ classical This would be analogous to Lawrence Ferrara's
music in temp tracks, in part, because he finds 'eclectic method' in music analysis (Ferrara
that the classical repertoire often contains an 1991).
over-abundance of information.
39. A 'locked picture' is the industry terminology
30. Ch. 7, '9 days later', Philadelphia, 52619, 00:15:26. indicating that the picture will not be subject to
31. 'Final score' is music editor's parlance denoting any more changes.
working with the composer on the (final) score.
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York, Greenwood Press)
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Conference, 22-24 April (University of Minnesota)
Gorbman, C. 1987. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press)
Griffin, N. 6 June 2004. 'Can this film be fixed', New York Times, Sec. 2, p. 13
Karlin, F., and Wright, R. 2004. On The Track: A Guide To Contemporary Film Scoring, revised second edition
by Fred Karlin (New York, Routledge Press)
Kassabian, A. 2001. Hearing Film (New York, Routledge Press)
Peric, S. 21 July 2004. Interviewed by the author.
Prendergast, R. 27 June 2004. Interviewed by the author.
Prendergast, R. 2 July 2004. Interviewed by the author in New York City.
Raksin, D. 27 April 2002. Interviewed by the author in Van Nuys, California.
Rapee, E. 1924. Motion Picture Moods for Pianists and Organists: A Rapid Reference Collection of Selected Pieces
(New York, Schirmer)
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Videography
Philadelphia, Dir. Jonathan Demme. Columbia Pictures. 52619, 1993.
Tears of the Sun. Dir. Antoine Fugua. Columbia. 09751, 2003.
What Lies Beneath. Dir. R. Zemeckis. DreamWorks Home Entertainment. 86406, 2000.

The Role of The Music Efitor and The Temp Track PDF

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The Role of the Music Editor and the 'Temp Track' as Blueprint for the Score, Source

Music, and Scource Music of Films

The role of the music editor and

Driven by film's role as a commercial medium, the efforts of the collaborators on

The 'silent' era - setting the stage: compilation scores

The music editor: overview

The music editor begins the project11

Industry nomenclature: score-source-scource

Roy Prendergast: music editing in Los Angeles

Cue: Lena's Story16

The gentle opening musical gestures (CO-GO-E - CO-GO-A) establish CO minor,

Example 2 Example 2-A

Figure 1. Screen shots from Philadelphia.

Oh brother are you gonna leave me wasting away

A montage of events flows, which introduces the protagonist Andrew Beckett, a

Allen, N. 30 June 2004. Interviewed by the author.

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